The DOMA Insider has been providing the community with behind-the-scenes stories and reviews of events in the David Owsley Museum of Art for over three years. Content for the DOMA Insider is written by students, with the goal of providing the community with an insider’s perspective of the museum. Below is an introduction of the new DOMA Insider writers for the Summer 2019 semester.

My name is Faleece Childress. I am going to be a Junior this upcoming fall and I am an art education Major and an art history Major.I work as an education intern. I work on helping plan activities for programs that the museum holds and soon I will be helping do research on works in our collection. DOMA has such a diverse collection of work and it is very accessible considering it is free to attend. The atmosphere is also very calming and it is a nice from the stresses of class. I also love that DOMA has a lot of opportunities for ways to interact with the museum. I believe art is very important for many reasons. The first is that it is a way of self-expression that can often help us to understand the artist. It is also a piece of history from the moment it is created. It can allow us to look back on the time it was created through the eyes of the artist. Even if the work is nonrepresentational, the ideals the artist has often are stemming from the time period in which he or she lived. Lastly, as a viewer, we can each have our own experiences with a work. No one person interacts or connects with a work in the exact same way, and that alone is beautiful. Something unique about me is that I love traveling and having the opportunity to experience new things. I am interested in learning about cultures different from my own.

My name is Jalynn Madison and I will be a first year, public relations grad student in the fall. I am one of the PR & Marketing interns this summer. One of my main responsibilities will be to update and manage all of the museum’s social media accounts. I liked the idea of being able to work in the artistic and creative setting of DOMA. I used to work for Emens Auditorium during undergraduate and I loved having first hand access to the performances and the shows. With DOMA, I am able to experience something similar, but with physical artwork.I like art because it is so expansive; art can be anything to anyone and the definition of art changes all the time. As someone who has been writing for most of my life, I am most often interested in the storytelling aspect of art. We can learn a lot from stories about history and people and those stories can often be told through the art we consume. Something unique about me is I can wiggle both of my ears at the same time and individually!

My name is Jonah James, and I am a senior English major with a concentration in Rhetoric and Writing. Additionally, I have minors in French and Professional Writing. I work as a curatorial intern, which means I track artifacts and artworks back as far as I can, detailing what’s been said about them and what significance they hold through time. I wanted to work at DOMA because it’s a pillar in Muncie art and culture; I think it’s amazing that Ball State has such a beautiful museum right on campus. The museum has such a wide range of art and artifacts from all over the world and is a fantastic place to see and explore different lives than your own. Art is how we understand our culture and sense of community—without it, we lose an integral form of expression. It’s especially important for people who live outside the norms of society. As a trans person, I see society through a different lens than most people–the same holds true for all marginalized groups. Because of this, the way we see and create art is also vastly different, and being able to see the world through different narratives and lenses becomes essential! Finally, a unique fact about me is that I take my cat on walks; he likes to climb trees!

My name is Sophie Edens and I will be a senior Creative Writing major in the fall. I’m one of the PR & Marketing interns this summer. One of my main responsibilities is to write engaging blog posts for the DOMA Insider. I’ve worked at DOMA as a guard for over a year, and I love the museum vibe. I’ve worked in DOMA as a guard and also as an intern at The Columbus Museum in Georgia, and I feel drawn to the artistic and free creative environment. I love art for all the forms it may take, and the creative freedom an artist has. I share this with writing, so it is unique to apply my love of writing with the artwork. I want to let the story of the art piece come to life for others to enjoy. Something unique about me is that I had two short stories published this past spring semester, one in Ball State’s The Broken Plate and the other in Indiana University East’s Tributaries.

My name is Victoria Hutchinson. I am a first year Metals Graduate Candidate. I received my BFA in chemistry from the University of Georgia with a minor in studio art. I work as an exhibition design intern, where I will be designing and making mounts to display the works for the upcoming recent acquisitions exhibit. I was drawn to DOMA because of the opportunity to see the curatorial side of the art world and work through the archival concerns surrounding 3D artworks in mixed media. Art is my passion and I hope to teach metals classes in the future. My favorite part of DOMA is the coin collection in the Harper Gallery where the coins appear to be floating.